#BendGate: What you need to know

Apple is known for the being on the cutting edge of the design of phones. Only a week after the release of their latest model, however, these design choices have turned into a storm of controversy, specifically with the iPhone 6 Plus.

In basic terms, the phone bends. Apparently, just the pressure of being in one’s pocket is enough to bend the iPhone 6 Plus. This was then tested by the YouTube channel Unbox Therapy to see if the pictures people were posting of bent iPhones were real. The video was uploaded September 23, and already has rocketed to over 25 million views. The video shows an iPhone 6 Plus being bent using just someone’s hands, and the results are shocking. #BendGate then trended on Twitter once people began to share the video.

Why is this happening, though? The iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus both got a makeover from the previous version, the iPhone 5S. The new phones have an all-aluminum back. With a 5.5 inch screen on the front, the 6 Plus has a pretty big piece of metal on the back. Since aluminum is a pretty bendable metal, it is not that big a surprise that the iPhone is able to be bent.

After such crazy feedback on the original video, Unbox Therapy has tested other phones of a similar form factor and phones made out of mostly metal. The results are that these phones either did not bend at all, or they were bendable, but went back to the original position after the pressure is taken off. Why then, does the iPhone bend when other big phones and other metal phones do not?

What the iPhone lacks that many other phones have is a magnesium chassis inside. That makes those other phones much more rigid and resistant to bending. Another reason the iPhone 6 Plus bends so easily is that it comes in at only 7.1 mm thin. The HTC One M8, which looks strikingly similar to the new iPhones, and also has an aluminum back, is 9.4 mm thick, which makes it more resistant to bending along with the magnesium chassis.

So how does one stop the phone from bending? Put a case on it. While it hasn’t been confirmed that a case will definitely stop the iPhone 6 Plus from bending, it should give it a huge boost it rigidity and support, making it much more difficult to be bent. Or, instead of getting the 6 Plus, just get the iPhone 6, which was also tested and did not show any major signs of being bendable.

Check out the original video that tests the bending of the iPhone 6 Plus: